This guy and another Orlando writer have written Dan Bernstein-esque columns from the start
George Diaz
Reporter
Orlando Sentinel
Joe didn’t know. Joe passed the information along to his superiors. Joe isn’t the monster; it’s Jerry Sandusky. Joe helped thousands of student-athletes, therefore he could not have harbored a child molester.
Rinse and repeat, in the hopes that somebody will buy what Joe Paterno’s loyal soldiers are selling.
It’s their standard response to the Penn State child-abuse scandal, which took on another newsy twist at the sentencing hearing for three former school officials who will do time for their crimes.
Graham Spanier, the ex-college president. will serve four to 12 months in prison and two years of probation. Gary Schultz, former vice president, will serve a jail term of six to 23 months and probation. Tim Curley, the former athletic director, will serve seven to 23 months.
They are guilty in their complicity for not stopping the rapes of children on the Penn State campus. And they can rot in prison forevermore along with Sandusky for all I care. Paterno is dead, and no doubt the ghosts of justice have been rattled once again.
Joe Paterno will never be able to shake the eternal sting of harboring a child molester, whether it was through blissful ignorance or willful negligence.
It’s all right there in the special investigative report from former FBI director Louis Freeh, whose team’s work documented the first signs of scandal dating to 1999. Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier were made aware of an incident involving Sandusky allegedly performing sex acts on an 11-year-old boy in the shower stalls of the Nittany Lions football locker room. Authorities did not press charges.
Joe Pa then gave Sandusky office space on Penn State’s main campus, with a really cool job title: Volunteer Position Director — Positive Action for Youth.
Is that what they’re calling child rapists these days?
But Sandusky’s sexual abuse goes as far back as 1971 when a 15-year-old boy was raped. He said he reported the attack to Paterno and another Penn State official. Then last year, a day after CNN broke that story, Penn State acknowledged that it had paid a settlement to a victim.
"I'd be willing to sit on a witness stand and confront Joe Paterno," the victim told CNN. "Unfortunately he died and I didn't get to."
But, hey, Joe did everything he could.
Judge John Boccabella certainly isn’t buying any of it, either.
“Why no one made a phone call to police is beyond me,” Boccabella said during the sentencing. “Why Mr. Sandusky was allowed to continue to use the Penn State facilities is beyond me. Mr. Paterno, the legendary football coach, could have made that phone call without so much as getting his hands dirty.”
The phone call would have come from the most powerful man in Pennsylvania. Not the governor. Not the university president. Not the athletic director.
Paterno was the most powerful force in all the land because of all the other things he did, many of them deserving of praise and platitudes. He was not only a great football coach but a great molder of young men. He donated millions to help build an on-campus library and at least $1 million for a campus interfaith spiritual center.
To this day, almost to a man, his former players support him unequivocally. Good men like Michael Timpson and Mike McBath.
Joe was a solid role model and father-figure to them and so many others, and therefore he was incapable of being complicit in Sandusky’s sex scandal. But all the stories, all the documents, all the testimony, and all the pain says otherwise.
Maybe Paterno was naïve, as some suggest, and brushed it off as “horseplay.” Maybe he got caught up in how this would destroy his legacy, as well as the stain it would leave on Penn State. Maybe he just didn’t want to know.
But through it all, unspeakable sins were committed on children. Atrocities. And Penn State took a page out of the Catholic Church pedophile priest playbook and tried to bury those sins.
There are at least 32 victims over the years. Those children will be forever scarred.
But so will Paterno’s legacy — forevermore — no matter how much his supporters scream in defiance.
I hope the victims and their families find some comfort in that.
George Diaz
Reporter
Orlando Sentinel
Joe didn’t know. Joe passed the information along to his superiors. Joe isn’t the monster; it’s Jerry Sandusky. Joe helped thousands of student-athletes, therefore he could not have harbored a child molester.
Rinse and repeat, in the hopes that somebody will buy what Joe Paterno’s loyal soldiers are selling.
It’s their standard response to the Penn State child-abuse scandal, which took on another newsy twist at the sentencing hearing for three former school officials who will do time for their crimes.
Graham Spanier, the ex-college president. will serve four to 12 months in prison and two years of probation. Gary Schultz, former vice president, will serve a jail term of six to 23 months and probation. Tim Curley, the former athletic director, will serve seven to 23 months.
They are guilty in their complicity for not stopping the rapes of children on the Penn State campus. And they can rot in prison forevermore along with Sandusky for all I care. Paterno is dead, and no doubt the ghosts of justice have been rattled once again.
Joe Paterno will never be able to shake the eternal sting of harboring a child molester, whether it was through blissful ignorance or willful negligence.
It’s all right there in the special investigative report from former FBI director Louis Freeh, whose team’s work documented the first signs of scandal dating to 1999. Paterno, Schultz, Curley and Spanier were made aware of an incident involving Sandusky allegedly performing sex acts on an 11-year-old boy in the shower stalls of the Nittany Lions football locker room. Authorities did not press charges.
Joe Pa then gave Sandusky office space on Penn State’s main campus, with a really cool job title: Volunteer Position Director — Positive Action for Youth.
Is that what they’re calling child rapists these days?
But Sandusky’s sexual abuse goes as far back as 1971 when a 15-year-old boy was raped. He said he reported the attack to Paterno and another Penn State official. Then last year, a day after CNN broke that story, Penn State acknowledged that it had paid a settlement to a victim.
"I'd be willing to sit on a witness stand and confront Joe Paterno," the victim told CNN. "Unfortunately he died and I didn't get to."
But, hey, Joe did everything he could.
Judge John Boccabella certainly isn’t buying any of it, either.
“Why no one made a phone call to police is beyond me,” Boccabella said during the sentencing. “Why Mr. Sandusky was allowed to continue to use the Penn State facilities is beyond me. Mr. Paterno, the legendary football coach, could have made that phone call without so much as getting his hands dirty.”
The phone call would have come from the most powerful man in Pennsylvania. Not the governor. Not the university president. Not the athletic director.
Paterno was the most powerful force in all the land because of all the other things he did, many of them deserving of praise and platitudes. He was not only a great football coach but a great molder of young men. He donated millions to help build an on-campus library and at least $1 million for a campus interfaith spiritual center.
To this day, almost to a man, his former players support him unequivocally. Good men like Michael Timpson and Mike McBath.
Joe was a solid role model and father-figure to them and so many others, and therefore he was incapable of being complicit in Sandusky’s sex scandal. But all the stories, all the documents, all the testimony, and all the pain says otherwise.
Maybe Paterno was naïve, as some suggest, and brushed it off as “horseplay.” Maybe he got caught up in how this would destroy his legacy, as well as the stain it would leave on Penn State. Maybe he just didn’t want to know.
But through it all, unspeakable sins were committed on children. Atrocities. And Penn State took a page out of the Catholic Church pedophile priest playbook and tried to bury those sins.
There are at least 32 victims over the years. Those children will be forever scarred.
But so will Paterno’s legacy — forevermore — no matter how much his supporters scream in defiance.
I hope the victims and their families find some comfort in that.
